Bin inspections and feedback
To help improve recycling, Council inspects bins and provides households with feedback.
We know people want to do the right thing, but it’s not always easy to know which bin to use. You may find a tag on your bin or receive a letter with some information to help you to recycle right.
About the program
As part of Council’s community waste education program, we conduct visual inspections of recycling bins to provide feedback, improve recycling and reduce incorrect items (also known as contamination) in the recycling bin. Cameras in the trucks are used to identify incorrect items, and staff also check some bins prior to collection.
These inspections allow us to provide direct feedback - either through a tag on the bin or a letter to the household - on what to put in the recycling bin and what to keep out.
The program can also include green waste bins (lime-green lid).
Why is Council inspecting bins?
Putting the right things in the right bin is good for the environment and our community. When recycling is contaminated, it makes it hard to sort and turn into new products, and disposal costs increase.
Audits show around one quarter of what goes in the recycling bin shouldn't be in there. We can do better.
By recycling right and keeping incorrect items out of household recycling, you’re helping to:
- Make it easy to sort items into clean, valuable separate materials to make new products. For example, sorted paper contaminated with plastic bags can mean it can’t be used to make new high-quality recycled paper.
- Save recyclable materials from landfill so they can be used again and again.
- Keep people and workplaces safe. Contamination, including bagged recycling and hazardous items, poses a risk to staff at the processing facility. Incorrect items can also damage or get caught in equipment, and some items like batteries and gas canisters cause fires in collection trucks and at recycling facilities.
- Reduce our reliance on new and raw materials.
- Contribute to a circular economy and build a strong local recycling industry.
- Keep recycling costs down.
What is contamination?
Contamination is incorrect items in the bin. The main problems in recycling include bags of garbage, bagged recycling, soft plastics/plastic bags, batteries, e-waste or electronic waste, clothing/textiles, building rubble/renovation waste and food.
How the program works
Recycling bins are inspected using the cameras in the recycling collection trucks. The truck’s camera captures the contents of the bin as it is emptied into the truck. Households with contaminated bins are sent a letter to help improve their recycling.
Other times, the team visits bins at the kerbside on bin collection day before the collection truck. They assess the contents of the recycling bins by lifting the lid and viewing the contents. A tag is placed on the recycling bin to provide feedback about the bin contents and how the household can improve their recycling.
| Tag type |
What it means |
Next steps |
| Green tag |
Thank you, no contamination was found |
Keep up the good work and do a quick refresh of what can go in the bin in case there were some incorrect items we couldn’t see |
| Red tag |
Contamination was found |
Specific feedback will be on the tag (keep these items out of the bin next time) |
| Pink sticker |
High contamination or hazardous items found in the bin |
Bin will not be collected, and resident will need to remove the contamination or hazardous item and dispose of them correctly, then call Council to organise a follow up collection |
The bin tag is made from 100% recycled paper and can be placed in your recycling.
Share the information on the tag with your household. You may like to keep it as a reminder of what can and can't be placed in your recycling bin.
If your bin was not collected
If your recycling bin was not collected following an inspection, it will have a pink sticker placed on it. You will need to remove the incorrect items indicated on the sticker before calling Council to arrange a follow up collection.
Collection points (where there are multiple bins)
If your bins are placed on the kerbside alongside those from other properties, this is considered a collection point. It may not always be possible to determine which bin belongs to which household.
If contamination is identified in any of the bins at a collection point during inspection by the collection truck camera, Council will send letters to all households likely to use that collection point.
If you didn’t put incorrect items in the bin
We understand that the incorrect items may have been placed in your recycling bin by someone else. Our aim is simply to provide feedback to households, so everyone can support recycling in Nillumbik.
If neighbours are contaminating bins, try to talk to them directly to highlight the issue. If there are ongoing issues, please let us know and we can send a letter to the area.
Fines
There are no fines for contaminating bins. The purpose of the inspection is to educate and provide feedback to improve recycling.
However, bins may not be collected when:
- contamination in the bin is very high
- hazardous items are observed in the bin
- there is ongoing contamination without improvement
Find out more
If you're unsure of what goes into each bin, visit the bin collection page.
To find out how to dispose of a particular item, visit the A to Z of waste disposal.